The years of Voltaire's life. Voltaire: basic ideas. Philosophical ideas of Voltaire. Thoughts on government

The Age of Enlightenment is one of the brightest in the development of the philosophy and culture of mankind. Its beginning is associated with 1718, when the first production of the tragedy "Oedipus" by Voltaire was carried out in Paris.

To understand the reasons for the sharp rise in the significance of the philosophical sciences, one must consider the characteristics of that time.

The first bourgeois revolutions take place - the Netherlands and England.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the industrial revolution began - the transition from manual labor to machine labor, from manufactory to factory, which resulted in the transformation of an agrarian society into an industrial one. characteristic feature The industrial revolution is the rapid growth of productive forces on the basis of large-scale machine industry and the establishment of capitalism as the dominant world economic system. The working class began to appear, a class of owners appeared, which began to compete with representatives of the titled nobility.

Science has received a new impetus - just list the main areas of science

The development of practical mathematics - Isaac Newton, physics and chemistry - Robert Boyle,

mechanics and hydraulics - Blaise Pascal, natural science - Francis Bacon. Happened scientific revolution, the result of which was the transfer of science to a more practical track, let's say figurative science began to deal not only with distant stars, but also with earthly problems.

Of course, philosophy, as a science, could not stand aside, and the Renaissance was replaced by the Enlightenment. It received such a name due to the fact that its representatives fought against the church, destroyed the established ideas about God, the surrounding world and man, openly propagated the ideas of the emerging bourgeoisie and, ultimately, ideologically prepared the great French revolution of 1789-1794.

In the Age of Enlightenment, there was a rejection of the religious worldview and an appeal to reason as the only criterion for the knowledge of man and society. For the first time in history, the question of the practical use of the achievements of science in the interests of social development was raised. enlightenment voltaire philosophical poem

Main philosophical directions:

1. Deism - (from lat. deus - god) - a religious and philosophical trend that recognizes the existence of God and the creation of the world by him, but denies most supernatural and mystical phenomena, divine revelation and religious dogmatism. Deism suggests that reason, logic, and observation of nature are the only means to know God and his will. God only creates the world and no longer participates in its life.

Deism appreciates human mind and freedom. Deism seeks to harmonize science and the idea of the existence of God, and not to oppose science and God.

Representatives of this trend: Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau - criticized pantheism (the identification of God and nature), rejected the possibility of God interfering in the processes of nature and the affairs of people

2. Atheistic-materialistic: Mellier, La Mettrie. Diderot, Helvetius, Holbach themselves rejected the idea of the existence of God in any form, explained the origin of the world and man from materialistic positions, in matters of knowledge they preferred empiricism, i.e. scientific knowledge. From this direction then grew dialectical materialism and further, Marxism.
3. Utopian-socialist (communist): Babeuf, Owen, Saint-Simon - dealt with the problem of developing and building an ideal society based on equality and social justice.

All philosophers of the Enlightenment are characterized by the idea of reorganizing life on a reasonable basis. Scientists of a new type sought to disseminate knowledge, to popularize it. Knowledge should no longer be the exclusive possession of a few, initiated and privileged, but should be available to all and be of practical use.

The principles of the Enlightenment were the basis of the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.

The intellectual movement of this era had a great influence on subsequent changes in ethics and social life Europe and America, the struggle for national independence, the abolition of slavery, the formulation of human rights. In addition, it shook the authority of the aristocracy and the influence of the church on social, intellectual and cultural life.

One of the founders of the philosophy of education is the French scientist

François-Marie Arouet, who took the pseudonym Voltaire. Years of his life: 1694-1778.

He is the son of a government official, from childhood he studied at college, studied Latin, his father prepared him for jurisprudence, young Arue, not yet Voltaire, preferred literature. He was a court poet, wrote poems glorifying aristocrats. When he was just over 20 years old, François-Marie Arouet chose a literary pseudonym for himself and became Voltaire. Already in his early youth, Voltaire achieved extraordinary popularity in chic Parisian society. His mind and talent amazed his interlocutors, he was also unusually witty. His venomous epigrams were widely cited, his plays played to sold-out theaters for long periods, and his books quickly sold out.

For satirical rhymes he ended up in the Bastille, was released, for a duel he was sent there again, then released again, but on the condition that he leave France. He left for England in 1726 and lived there for 3 years.

Returning to France, Voltaire published his English impressions under the title Philosophical Letters; the book was confiscated (1734), the publisher was imprisoned in the Bastille, and Voltaire fled to Lorraine, where he found shelter with the Marquise Emilie du Chatelet.

It should be said about her especially, she became his inspiration, his muse.

In 1734, in Rouen, Voltaire was attacked by several robbers, but he was saved from robbery, and maybe from death by a rider passing by on a horse - it was Emilie du Chatelet, a French mathematician and physicist. She stated that Voltaire was the one she needed and offered to live together. They lived for 15 years in the castle of Syre, which belonged to her husband and who did not pay attention to his wife's little oddities.

Shortly after moving to Sir, the Marquise partially rebuilt the castle at the request of Voltaire and with his money. A new wing appeared in Sira, which housed a natural science laboratory and a library. Emily and Voltaire carried out physical research, in a small theater equipped under the roof of the castle, Voltaire's plays were staged. Siré became a meeting place for writers, natural scientists, and mathematicians. Here in 1736 - 1737 Voltaire, according to him, with the help of Emilie du Chatelet, wrote "Elements of Newton's Philosophy". In general, Voltaire wrote all his best books, literary and philosophical, in the castle of Syré.

In 1746, Voltaire was appointed court poet and historiographer to King Louis, but, having aroused the discontent of the Marquise de Pompadour, he broke with the court. Always suspected of political unreliability, not feeling safe in France, Voltaire, at the invitation of the Prussian king Frederick II, settled in Berlin, but soon quarreled with him and settled in Switzerland, buying a house there in the city of Ferne.

Voltaire lived there for twenty years, writing literary and philosophical works, corresponding with European intellectual leaders, and receiving visitors.

In particular, Tsarina Catherine the Second corresponded with him, who corresponded with him in French and complained, “what a pity that you do not speak Russian, because it manages to convey your thoughts much more subtly!”

All these years, the volume of his work has not decreased. He was a fantastically prolific writer. All his writings occupy more than 30,000 pages. They include epic poems, lyric poems, personal letters, pamphlets, novels, short stories, plays, serious books on history and philosophy.

In 1778, at the age of eighty-three, he returned to Paris for the premiere of his new play Irene. Crowds of people applauded him as the "great elder" of the French Enlightenment. Hundreds of admirers, including Benjamin Franklin, visited him. But Voltaire's life soon came to an end. On May 30, 1778, he died in Paris. Due to outright anti-clericalism, he could not be buried in the city due to Christian custom, but thirteen years later, the victorious French revolutionaries dug up the remains of a great man and reburied him in the Panthéon in Paris

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The son of an official Francois Marie Arouet, Voltaire studied at the Jesuit College of "Latin and all sorts of nonsense", was intended by his father to become a lawyer, but preferred literature to law; began his literary activity in the palaces of aristocrats as a parasite poet; for satirical rhymes addressed to the regent and his daughter, he ended up in the Bastille (where he was later sent a second time, this time for other people's poems).

He was beaten by a nobleman, from the de Rogan family, whom he ridiculed, wanted to challenge him to a duel, but due to the intrigue of the offender, he again found himself in prison, was released on the condition of going abroad; interesting is the fact that in his youth, two astrologers predicted only 33 Earth years for Voltaire. And it was this failed duel that could make the prediction a reality, but the case decided differently. At the age of 63, Voltaire wrote about this: “I have deceived the astrologers out of spite for thirty years, for which I ask you to humbly excuse me.”

In 1746, Voltaire was appointed court poet and historiographer, but, having aroused the discontent of the Marquise de Pompadour, he broke with the court. Always suspected of political unreliability, not feeling safe in France, Voltaire followed (1751) the invitation of the Prussian king Frederick II, with whom he had been in correspondence for a long time (since 1736), and settled in Berlin (Potsdam), but, having caused the king’s displeasure with unseemly money speculation, as well as a quarrel with the president of the Maupertuis Academy (caricatured by Voltaire in the "Diatribe of Doctor Akaki"), was forced to leave Prussia and settled in Switzerland (1753). Here he bought an estate near Geneva, renaming it "Otradnoe" (Délices), then acquired two more estates: Tournai and - on the border with France - Fernet (1758), where he lived almost until his death. A man now rich and completely independent, a capitalist who lent money to aristocrats, a landowner and at the same time the owner of a weaving and watch workshop, Voltaire - the "Ferney patriarch" - could now freely and fearlessly represent in his person " public opinion”, an omnipotent opinion, against the old, surviving socio-political order.

Along with natural laws, the philosopher identifies positive laws, the necessity of which he explains by the fact that "people are evil." Positive laws are designed to guarantee the natural rights of man. Many positive laws seemed unjust to the philosopher, embodying only human ignorance.

Criticism of religion

A tireless and merciless enemy of the church and clerics, whom he persecuted with arguments of logic and arrows of sarcasm, a writer whose slogan was "écrasez l'infâme" ("destroy the vile", often translated as "crush the vermin"), Voltaire attacked both Judaism and on Christianity (for example, in “Dinner at the Citizen of Boulainville”), expressing, however, their respect for the person of Christ (both in the specified work and in the treatise “God and people”); for the purpose of anti-church propaganda, Voltaire published the Testament of Jean Mellier, a socialist priest of the 17th century who did not spare words to debunk clericalism.

Fighting in word and deed (intercession for the victims of religious fanaticism - Calas and Servetus) against the domination and oppression of religious superstitions and prejudices, against clerical fanaticism, Voltaire tirelessly preached the ideas of religious "tolerance" (tolérence) - a term that meant in the 18th century, contempt for Christianity and unbridled advertising of anti-Catholicism - both in his publicistic pamphlets (Treatise on religious tolerance, 1763), and in his works of art (the image of Henry IV, who put an end to the religious strife between Catholics and Protestants; the image of the emperor in the tragedy "Hebra"). A special place in the views of Voltaire was occupied by the attitude towards Christianity in general. Voltaire considered Christian myth-making a deception.

In 1722, Voltaire wrote the anti-clerical poem For and Against. In this poem, he proves that christian religion, which prescribes to love a merciful God, actually paints him as a cruel tyrant, "whom we should hate." Thus, Voltaire proclaims a decisive break with Christian beliefs:

In this unworthy image, I do not recognize God, Whom I should honor ... I am not a Christian ...

Criticism of atheism. Deism of Voltaire

Fighting against the church, the clergy and the religions of "revelation", Voltaire was at the same time the enemy of atheism; Voltaire devoted a special pamphlet to criticism of atheism ("Homélie sur l'athéisme"). A deist in the spirit of the English bourgeois freethinkers of the 18th century, Voltaire tried with all sorts of arguments to prove the existence of the Deity who created the universe, in whose affairs, however, he does not interfere, using evidence: “cosmological” (“Against atheism”), “teleological” (“Le philosophe ignorant”) and "moral" (article "God" in the "Encyclopedia").

But in the 60s and 70s Voltaire is imbued with skeptical moods ":

But where is the Eternal Geometer? In one place or everywhere without taking up space? I don't know anything about it. Did He make the world out of His substance? I don't know anything about it. Is it indefinite, characterized by neither quantity nor quality? I don't know anything about it.

"Voltaire departs from the position of creationism, says that "nature is eternal"". “Voltaire's contemporaries told about one episode. When Voltaire was asked if there is a God, he asked first to close the door tightly and then said: “There is no God, but my footman and wife should not know this, since I do not want my footman to stab me, and my wife went out of obedience” » .

In the "Instructive Sermons", as well as in philosophical stories, the argument of "usefulness" is repeatedly encountered, that is, such an idea of God in which He acts as a social and moral regulatory principle. In this sense, faith in Him is necessary, since only it, according to Voltaire, is able to keep the human race from self-destruction and mutual extermination.

Let us at least see, my brethren, how useful such faith is, and how interested we are in having it imprinted on all hearts.

These principles are necessary for the preservation of the human race. Deprive people of the notion of a punishing and rewarding God - and here Sulla and Marius bathe with pleasure in the blood of their fellow citizens; Augustus, Antony and Lepidus surpass Sulla in cruelty, Nero cold-bloodedly gives the order to kill his own mother.

Rejecting medieval monastic asceticism in the name of the human right to happiness, which is rooted in reasonable egoism (“Discours sur l'homme”), for a long time sharing the optimism of the English bourgeoisie of the 18th century, which transformed the world in its own image and likeness and asserted through the mouth of the poet Pope: “Whatever is, is right” (“everything is good that is”), Voltaire, after the earthquake in Lisbon, which destroyed a third of the city, somewhat reduced his optimism, stating in a poem about the Lisbon catastrophe: “now not everything is fine, but everything will be fine” .

Socio-philosophical views

According to social views, Voltaire is a supporter of inequality. Society should be divided into "educated and rich" and those who, "having nothing", "obliged to work for them" or "amuse" them. Therefore, there is no need for workers to educate: “if the people begin to reason, everything is lost” (from Voltaire’s letters). Printing "Testament" Mellier, Voltaire threw out all his sharp criticism of private property, considering it "outrageous." This also explains Voltaire's negative attitude towards Rousseau, although there was a personal element in their relationship.

A staunch and passionate opponent of absolutism, he remained until the end of his life a monarchist, a supporter of the idea of enlightened absolutism, a monarchy based on the "educated part" of society, on the intelligentsia, on "philosophers". The enlightened monarch is his political ideal, which Voltaire embodied in a number of images: in the person of Henry IV (in the poem "Henriad"), the "sensitive" king-philosopher Teucer (in the tragedy "The Laws of Minos"), who sets as his task "enlighten people, soften the morals of their subjects, to civilize a wild country, ”and King Don Pedro (in the tragedy of the same name), who tragically dies in the fight against the feudal lords in the name of the principle expressed by Teucer in the words: “The kingdom is a great family with a father at the head. Whoever has a different idea of the monarch is guilty before humanity.”

Voltaire, like Rousseau, sometimes tended to defend the idea of the "primitive state" in such plays as "The Scythians" or "The Laws of Minos", but his "primitive society" (Scythians and Sidonians) has nothing to do with Rousseau's depicted paradise of small proprietors. -farmers, but embodies the society of enemies of political despotism and religious intolerance.

Literary creativity

Dramaturgy

Continuing to cultivate the aristocratic genres of poetry - epistles, gallant lyrics, odes, etc., Voltaire in the field of dramatic poetry was the last major representative of classical tragedy - he wrote 28; among them the most important: "Oedipus" (1718), "Brutus" (1730), "Zaire" (1732), "Caesar" (1735), "Alzira" (1736), "Mohammed" (1741), "Meropa" ( 1743), "Semiramide" (1748), "Saved Rome" (1752), "Chinese Orphan" (1755), "Tancred" (1760).

However, in the context of the decline of aristocratic culture, the classical tragedy was inevitably transformed. In its former rationalistic coldness, notes of sensitivity broke in more and more abundance ("Zaire"), its former sculptural clarity was replaced by romantic picturesqueness ("Tankred"). The repertoire of ancient figures was invaded more and more decisively by exotic characters - medieval knights, Chinese, Scythians, Hebras and the like.

For a long time, not wanting to put up with the ascension of a new drama - as a form of "hybrid", Voltaire ended up defending the method of mixing the tragic and the comic (in the preface to "The Spender" and "Socrates"), considering this mixture, however, legitimate only a feature of “high comedy” and rejecting “tearful drama” as a “non-fiction genre”, where there are only “tears”. For a long time resisting the invasion of the plebeian heroes on the stage, Voltaire, under the pressure of the bourgeois drama, surrendered this position too, opening wide the doors of the drama "for all classes and all ranks" (preface to "Scotch", with references to English examples) and formulating (in "Discourse on the Hebras") essentially the program of the democratic theater; “In order to more easily inspire people with the valor needed by society, the author chose heroes from the lower class. He was not afraid to bring to the stage a gardener, a young girl helping her father in rural work, a simple soldier. Such heroes, standing closer to nature, speaking simple language, will make a stronger impression and reach their goal sooner than princes in love and princesses tormented by passion. Enough theaters thundered with tragic adventures, possible only among monarchs and completely useless for the rest of the people. The type of such bourgeois plays includes "The Right of the Seigneur", "Nanina", "The Spender", etc.

Poetry

If, as a playwright, Voltaire went from orthodox classical tragedy through its sentimentalization, romanticization and exoticism to the drama of the New Age under the pressure of the growing movement of the "third estate", then his evolution as an epic writer is similar. Voltaire began in the style of the classical epic (“Henriad”, 1728; originally “The League or the Great Henry”), which, however, like the classical tragedy, was transformed under his hand: instead of a fictional hero, a real one was taken, instead of fantastic wars - in fact the former, instead of gods - allegorical images - concepts: love, jealousy, fanaticism (from "Essai sur la poésie épique").

Continuing the style of the heroic epic in The Poem of the Battle of Fontenoy, which glorifies the victory of Louis XV, Voltaire then in La Pucelle d'Orléans, which caustically and obscenely ridicules the entire medieval world of feudal-clerical France, reduces the heroic poem to the heroic farce and gradually, under the influence of Pope, from a heroic poem to a didactic poem, to "discourse in verse" (discours en vers), to a presentation in the form of a poem of one's moral and social philosophy ("Letter on the Philosophy of Newton", "Discourse in verse about man”, “Natural Law”, “Poem about the Lisbon catastrophe”).

philosophical prose

From here there has been a natural transition to prose, to a philosophical novel (“Vision of Babuk”, “Innocent”, “Zadig, or Fate”, “Micromegas”, “Candide, or Optimism”, “The Princess of Babylon”, “Scarmentado” and others, 1740 -1760s), where, on the pivot of adventures, travels, exoticism, Voltaire develops a subtle dialectic of the relationship between chance and predestination (“Zadig or Fate”), the simultaneous lowland and greatness of a person (“Vision of Babuk”), the absurdity of both pure optimism and and pure pessimism ("Candide"), and about the only wisdom, which consists in the conviction of Candide, who has known all the vicissitudes, that a person is called to "cultivate his garden" or, as the Innocent from the story of the same name begins to understand in a similar way, to do his own thing and try to correct the world not loud words, but a noble example.

As for all the "enlighteners" of the XVIII century, for Voltaire, fiction was not an end in itself, but only a means of propagating his ideas, a means of protest against autocracy, against churchmen and clericalism, an opportunity to preach religious tolerance, civil freedom, etc. According to this attitude, his work is highly rational and journalistic. All the forces of the "old order" violently rose up against this, as one of his enemies christened him, "Prometheus", overthrowing the power of earthly and heavenly gods; Freron was especially zealous, whom Voltaire branded with his laughter in a number of pamphlets and brought out in the play "Scotch" under the transparent name of the informer Frelon.

Human rights activities

In 1762, Voltaire launched a campaign to have the Protestant Jean Calas, who was executed on charges of murdering his son, overturned his sentence. As a result, Jean Calas was found not guilty and the rest of those convicted in this case were acquitted. The French historian Marion Sigault argues that the Case of Calas was used by Voltaire to express his hatred of the Church, and not at all to protect the rights of the executed Calas (acquitted due to procedural errors): Marion Sigaut, Voltaire - Une imposture au service des puissants, Paris, Kontre-Kulture, 2014.

Attitude towards Jews

In his "Philosophical Dictionary" Voltaire wrote: "... you will find in them (the Jews) only an ignorant and barbarous people who have long combined the most disgusting greed with the most contemptible superstitions and with the most irresistible hatred for all peoples who tolerate them and at the same time their but they enrich ... Nevertheless, they should not be burned. ” Louis de Bonald wrote: “When I say that philosophers are kind to the Jews, the chapter philosophical school XVIII century Voltaire, who throughout his life showed a strong dislike for this people ... ".

followers of Voltaire. Voltairianism

Voltaire was forced to publish his works often anonymously, renouncing them when rumor declared him the author, publish them abroad, and smuggle them into France. In the struggle against the dying old order, Voltaire could, on the other hand, rely on a huge influential audience both in France and abroad, ranging from "enlightened monarchs" to the broad cadres of the new bourgeois intelligentsia, right up to Russia, to which he dedicated his "History of Peter" and partly "Charles XII", while in correspondence with Catherine II and Sumarokov, and where his name was baptized, although without sufficient reason, a social movement known as Voltairianism.

The cult of Voltaire reached its apogee in France during the Great Revolution, and in 1792, during the performance of his tragedy The Death of Caesar, the Jacobins adorned the head of his bust with a red Phrygian cap. If in the 19th century, in general, this cult waned, then the name and glory of Voltaire were always revived in the epoch of revolutions: at the turn of the 19th century - in Italy, where the troops of General Bonaparte brought the principle of declaring the rights of man and citizen, partly in England, where the fighter against Holy Union, Byron, glorified Voltaire in the octaves of "Childe Harold", then - on the eve of the March Revolution in Germany, where Heine resurrected his image. At the turn of the 20th century, the Voltaire tradition flared up again in a peculiar refraction in the “philosophical” novels of Anatole France.

Voltaire Library

After the death of Voltaire (1778), the Russian Empress Catherine II expressed a desire to acquire the writer's library and instructed her agent in Paris to discuss this proposal with Voltaire's heirs. It was specifically stipulated that Catherine's letters to Voltaire should also be included in the subject of the transaction. The heiress (Voltaire's niece, widow Denis) willingly agreed, the amount of the transaction amounted to a large sum for those times of 50,000 ecu, or 30,000 rubles in gold. The delivery of the library to St. Petersburg was carried out on a special ship in the autumn of 1779, it consisted of 6,814 books and 37 volumes with manuscripts. The empress did not receive her letters back, they were bought and soon published by Beaumarchais, however, Catherine agreed with him in advance that before publication she would be given the opportunity to remove individual fragments of letters.

Initially, the Voltaire Library was housed in the Hermitage. Under Nicholas I, access to it was closed; only A. S. Pushkin, by special order of the tsar, was admitted there in the course of his work on the History of Peter. In 1861, by order of Alexander II, the Voltaire Library was transferred to the Imperial Public Library (now the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg).

There are many Voltaire's notes in the books, which constitutes a separate object of study. Employees of the National Library of Russia have prepared for publication the seven-volume "Corpus of Voltaire's Reader's Marks", from which the first 5 volumes have been published.

Bibliography

Collected works in 50 vols. - R. 1877-1882.
Correspondence of Voltaire, ibid., vols. 33-50.
Languages D. Voltaire in Russian literature. 1879.
Novels and stories, translated by N. Dmitriev. - St. Petersburg, 1870.
Voltaire M.-F. Candide. - Pantheon, 1908 (abbreviated reprint - "Spark", 1926).
Voltaire M.-F. Princess of Babylon. Publishing house "World Literature", 1919.
Voltaire M.-F. Maid of Orleans, in 2 vols., with notes and articles, 1927.
Voltaire. Aesthetics. Articles. Letters. Foreword and reasoning, 1974.
Ivanov, I. I. The political role of the French theater in the 18th century. - M., 1895. on the Runivers website
Voltaire. Philosophy. M., 1988
Voltaire. God and people. 2 volumes, M., 1961
Hal Hellman. Great confrontations in science. Ten most exciting disputes - Chapter 4= Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever. - M.: "Dialectics", 2007. - S. 320. - ISBN 0-471-35066-4.
Desnoiresterres G. Voltaire et la société du XVIII siècle, 8 vv. - P., 1867-1877.
Morley J. Voltaire. - London, 1878 (Russian translation. - M., 1889).
Bengesco G. Voltaire. Bibliographie de ses uvres. 4 vv. - P., 1889-1891.
Champion G. Voltaire. - P., 1892.
Strauss D. F. Voltaire. - Lpz., 1895 (Russian translation. - M., 1900).
Crousle L. La vie et les œuvres de Voltaire. 2 vv. - P., 1899.
Lanson G. Voltaire. - P., 1906.
Brandes. Voltaire. 2 vv. - P., 1923.
Maugras G. Querelles des philosophes Voltaire et Rousseau. - P., 1886.
Brunetiere F. Les epoques du theatre français. - P., 1892.
Lion H. Les tragédies et les theories dramatiques de Voltaire. - P., 1896.
Griswald. Voltaire als Historiker. - 1898.
Ducros L. Les encyclopedistes. - P., 1900 (there is a Russian translation).
Robert L. Voltaire et l'intolérance réligieuse. - P., 1904.
Pellissier G. Voltaire philosophe. - P., 1908.

Philosophical works

"Zadig" ( Zadig ou la Destinee, 1747)
"Micromegas" ( Micromegas, 1752)
"Candide" ( Candide, ou l'Optimisme, 1759)
"Treatise on Tolerance" ( Traite sur la tolerance, 1763)
"What Ladies Like" Ce qui plaît aux dames, 1764)
"Philosophical Dictionary" ( Dictionnaire philosophiques, 1764)
"Innocent" ( L'Ingenu, 1767)
"Babylonian Princess" La Princesse de Babylon, 1768)

Screen versions of works

Candide, or Optimism in XX century
Innocent

Voltaire's translators into Russian

One of the earliest references to this legend is in The Scriptures of Truth by Sidney Collett, first published in England in 1905. According to Collette, Voltaire, who died in 1778 year, predicted that 100 years after his death, Christianity would become history. However, less than a quarter of a century later, the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded (1804). The printing press on which Voltaire printed atheistic literature was now used to print the Bible, and the house in which he lived was converted by the Bible Society of Geneva into a bookstore where biblical literature was stored.

Collett's book went through many reprints in England and was published in the United States under the title All About the Bible. Even if she is not the source of the myth, she has a leading role in its dissemination.

Similar stories have been published in many books and websites. Most often, houses in Geneva or Paris appear, less often in Germany or Austria. The bible organization commonly referred to is the "Bible Society of Geneva" or the "British and Foreign Bible Society". The period between the death of Voltaire and the purchase of a house varies from 20 to 100 years. Notably, most sources characterize Voltaire as an atheist, whereas he was a deist. There are no references to sources of information in any of the publications.

The Bible Societies of France, Switzerland and Great Britain deny their ownership of the former houses of Voltaire. Voltaire's biographer Theodor Besterman also denies this:

A likely source of misunderstanding was the acquisition in 1846 by the British and Foreign Bible Society (English) Russian"House of Gibbon" in Lausanne, named after the famous historian and atheist Edward Gibbon. Until 1859, this building housed a shipping center for the distribution of religious literature. American Bible Society (English) Russian(ABS) participated in this purchase by donating $10,000 to the British brothers. (English) Russian contained in the 1849 ABS annual report. The mention of Voltaire in this context, apparently, served as one of the sources of the myth:

“... The Committee found it possible to send $10,000 to France, the home of Voltaire, who predicted that in the 19th century the Bible would be known only as an antique. I can report in this regard that the Gibbon House (named after a famous atheist) has been turned into a warehouse for the Bible Society, which is run by a book salesman. The very ground on which this famous mocker walked became the site of the circulation of the book against which his efforts were directed.

Original text (English)

“… The committee had been able to redeem their pledge by sending $10,000 to France, the country of Voltaire, who predicted that in the nineteenth century the Bible would be known only as a relic of antiquity. He could say, while on this topic, that the Hotel Gibbon (so-called from that celebrated infidel) is now become the very depository of the Bible Society, and the individual who superintends the building is an agent for the sale and receipt of the books. The very ground this illustrious scoffer often paced, has now become the scene of the operation and success of an institution established for the diffusion of the very book against which his efforts were directed.

The fate of the houses associated with the name of Voltaire is as follows. The mansion in Fernie (France) is now a museum and art center. The mansion in Geneva (Switzerland) serves as the headquarters of the Museum and the Voltaire Institute. Both houses in Lausanne where Voltaire lived have now been demolished. The house at 27 Rue de Voltaire in Paris, where Voltaire died, is now the restaurant "Voltaire".

The "House of Gibbon" is currently the headquarters of the "Association banks Switzerland" (Société de Banque Suisse).

famous quotes

The phrase "If God did not exist, he would have to be invented" belongs to Voltaire, but is not quoted in full, which radically changes its meaning:

Notes

Tarkhanovsky V. HOW VOLTAIRE DID FROM DEATH (indefinite) . Parsadoxes. Paradox (09/01/2002).
, With. 219.
, With. 89.
, With. 220.
Voltaire. Instructive sermons. Sermon One: On Atheism
Moramarco M. Freemasonry past and present

Voltaire, real name Francois-Marie Arouet, (1694-1778) is a great French philosopher and thinker, prose writer and poet, tragedian and satirist, historian, educator and publicist.

Childhood and youth

Father, Francois Arouet, was a civil servant, worked as a notary and collected taxes. Mom, Marie Marguerite Domar, was from the family of the secretary of the criminal court.

There were five children in the family, Voltaire was the youngest. When he was barely 7 years old, his mother died.

The boy studied at a Jesuit college (now it is the Lyceum of Louis the Great in Paris), where, according to him, they taught "Latin and other nonsense." The father dreamed of seeing his son as a lawyer and after graduating from college in 1711 assigned him to the School of Law.

But the career of a lawyer did not fascinate the young Voltaire at all. On top of that, he didn't love his father. The older the young man became, the less he wanted to be the son of a prosperous bourgeois. Later, at the age of 50, Voltaire declared that his real father was a beggar musketeer and poet, a certain Chevalier de Rochebrune. And then, being an 18-year-old guy, Voltaire still left legal studies and took up literature.

The beginning of literary activity

I must say that he began to write poetry while still studying in college. Voltaire was a free poet, lived in aristocratic houses, where he was introduced by a relative maternal line Abbot Chateauneuf.

His works were full of satire, for which Voltaire more than once fell into the Bastille. In 1717, he spent almost a year in prison, but he did not waste time, he worked on the poem "Henriad" and the tragedy "Oedipus".

After another imprisonment young man was asked to leave France, otherwise he was threatened with a long stay in prison. Voltaire went to England, where he spent about three years, mainly studying science, politics, philosophy and literature.

Returning to Paris, in the book " Philosophical Thoughts» Voltaire shared his impressions of England. The book was confiscated, the publisher ended up in the Bastille, and the writer himself managed to escape, this time to Lorraine.

Emilie du Chatelet

Voltaire met the Marquise du Chatelet in Rouen. He hid there under a false name, practically did not go out in fear that he would be caught and imprisoned again in the Bastille.

One evening, having decided to still take a walk in the fresh air and already returning home, Voltaire saw a woman on horseback. He noticed an expensive outfit and jewelry, which means that the lady was a noble and rich person. She appeared at the very moment when Voltaire saw robbers with sticks at his house. When the woman appeared, the crowd threw their sticks and fled. The savior was Emilie du Chatelet. The woman said that she knew everything about him, and she came specially to take Voltaire to her castle.

The writer began to live in Sirey Castle, later he called it "heaven on earth." He was 39, the Marquise 27, it turned out to be an amazingly beautiful love story, they lived together for 15 years. Emilia became everything for Voltaire - best friend, mentor, assistant, lover, faithful companion and muse. It was in the castle of Sirey that he created his best masterpieces: the tragedies "Alzira" and "Mohammed", the poem "The Virgin of Orleans", as well as scientific works"Fundamentals of Newton's Philosophy" and "Treatise on Metaphysics".

Marquise sincerely experienced with him every joy, grief, rise and fall, worried about him and helped in his work. She herself was very educated, was fond of literature, physics, philosophy and mathematics, translated Newton's works into French.

When the Marquise died, it seemed to Voltaire that there was no point in living now without the woman he loved. But fate was destined that he would outlive his Emilia for a long 30 years.

European activities

In 1745, Voltaire was appointed to the post of court poet, the following year he was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences, as well as an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

But strained relations with Louis XV, as well as the death of his beloved Emilia, served as a pretext for Voltaire to agree to the proposal of the Prussian king Frederick II and leave for Berlin.

For three years, the poet had a discord with the Prussian king because of his sharp tongue and financial fraud. Voltaire left, this time for Switzerland. On the border of the Canton of Geneva, he owned two estates - he rented one, bought the second. Here he engaged in extensive correspondence and receiving guests from all over Europe. Among those with whom he corresponded, in addition to the Prussian King Frederick II, were:

Russian Empress Catherine II;
king of Denmark Christian VII;
King of Poland Stanislaw August Poniatowski;
King Gustav III of Sweden.

From 1750 to 1760, Voltaire worked very hard, the result of his fruitful work were philosophical stories:

"Candide";
"History of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great";
"Questions about the encyclopedia";
"Treatise on religious tolerance";
"Innocent";
"Pocket Philosophical Dictionary";
"The experience of a universal history of the morals and spirit of the people."

By this time, Voltaire's fortune had noticeably increased, he received his father's inheritance, royalties for his published works. philosophical writings. It should be noted that the philosopher did not shy away from financial speculation. So by 1776 his fortune totaled 200 thousand livres, and he was among the the richest people France. Voltaire started several rather profitable enterprises for himself, the aristocrats borrowed money from the philosopher, and now he could think and say whatever he wanted.

Death and legacy

Voltaire was already over eighty years old when he returned to Paris, he was greeted enthusiastically. He bought a house on Rue de Richelieu. It seemed that now in the homeland you can safely live out your life.

But he was in severe pain. Modern doctors, having studied the documents and notes of the philosopher himself about how the disease proceeded, agreed that Voltaire most likely had prostate cancer. To reduce the pain, he became addicted to opium. In March 1778, he was reconciled with the church and his sins were forgiven. And in May, the great philosopher died, he died in his sleep in Paris on May 30, 1778.

A Christian burial of Voltaire's body was denied. He was buried in Champagne, where his nephew served as rector of the Abbey of Cellier. But in 1791, his remains were nevertheless transferred to the Paris National Shrine of Eminent People.

Immediately after his death, Empress Catherine II expressed a desire to buy out Voltaire's library. The deal was negotiated with the heirs of the philosopher, his niece sold 6814 books and 37 handwritten volumes for 30,000 gold rubles. In 1779, a special ship delivered this heritage to St. Petersburg.

Initially, the Voltaire Library was kept in the Hermitage, now in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg.

There is no price for the legacy that Voltaire left to posterity. The collection of his philosophical writings is about 50 volumes of 600 pages each, plus two huge volumes of "Pointers".

The surname "Voltaire" was a literary pseudonym. Voltaire's real name was Arue (Arouet, François Marie). Voltaire - Anagram from Arouet l. j. (= le jeune), where u taken for v A j – behind i(Arouetlj=Arovetli - Voltaire). Francois Voltaire's father came from the third estate and held the modest position of a notary. After graduating from a course at a Jesuit college, Voltaire showed his talents very early and gained access to the big world. The audacity of thought, which he discovered while still at school, even caused the prediction of one of his teachers that he would become the leading figure of deism in France. His Godfather, Abbé Chatonev, introduced him as a young man to the cheerful and carefree secular circles of Paris. Here he also met the old woman Ninon de Lanclos, once a famous courtesan. This woman, distinguished by her great mind, was struck by the early development of Voltaire and even denied him, under a spiritual will, a small amount of money to buy books.

Soon the young man happened big trouble. After the death of Louis XIV, which coincided with very difficult times for France, various epigrams and other kinds of satirical works began to go from hand to hand, among which Les j "ai vu, which described the slavery of the French people in gloomy colors, drew special attention; the author of this the work added that he was not yet twenty years old, and he had already seen all these disasters (j "ai vu ces maux et je n" ai pas vingt ans). Young Voltaire, already famous for his poems, was suspected of authoring a lampoon on the late king and put him in the Bastille, although in this case he was not guilty of anything.Thus, having hardly entered life, he became acquainted firsthand with administrative arbitrariness, depriving personal freedom of any guarantees in France.In the Bastille, Francois Voltaire continued his literary studies , incidentally, here he conceived his "Henriad", an epic poem that glorified Henry IV as a representative of religious tolerance... Around the same time, he wrote the tragedy "Oedipus", which in 1718 was put on stage and was a success. The time of pure art in the history of French drama has passed, and already here Voltaire gave vent to his oppositional mood, expressing, for example, the idea that “our priests are not at all what the people think of them”, and that “only our credulity makes up all their wisdom". Voltaire had to spend almost a year in the Bastille.

Some time after he was released from there, he was destined to get to know this prison a second time. This time, the young Voltaire suffered not only from administrative arbitrariness, but also from the aristocratic arrogance of one nobleman with whom he had a collision. It was once in the house of the Duke of Sully that he met the young Chevalier de Rogan, with whom he had a quarrel. The aristocrat could not bear the insulting response of the plebeian to his insolence, and a few days later ordered his servants to nail the young poet with sticks, who, for his part, decided to challenge him to a duel. De Rogan found such a duel humiliating for himself, and it ended with the fact that the influential relatives of de Rohan obtained an order to put Voltaire back in the Bastille, from where he was released only with an order to immediately leave Paris. The two main aspects of the "old order" thus made themselves felt very early on by the young writer, who was destined to become the hero of the century, the defender of freedom and equality. No wonder that subsequently a sense of personal security forced Voltaire to seek connections with the powerful of this world, and sometimes to refuse the authorship of certain works for which one could again get into the Bastille.

Voltaire's trip to England

In 1726 Voltaire went to England. This trip had a decisive influence on his activities. And in general England, where orders were established, so dissimilar to the French, and where by the beginning of the 18th century. tremendous advances were made in philosophy, science and political literature, was then a country that exerted a great influence on the French, who even made a kind of pilgrimage to this realm of personal, spiritual and political freedom. The time when Voltaire visited England was remarkable. Her mental life was still under the fresh impression of those shocks that emanated from Locke (d. 1704) and Newton (d. 1727), and Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke were still at the head of free thinkers. Under the influences coming from the new social situation and from the new mental environment, Voltaire from a poet, only personally inclined to freethinking, turned into a philosopher who set a social goal for his literary activity: the task of "destroying those prejudices, the slave of which was his fatherland," as he put it. Condorcet in his short biography of Voltaire. Deistic philosophy and political literature, which developed the idea of "free thought", were two legacies bequeathed by England of the 17th century to England of the next century, and Voltaire, imbued with the basic principles of this philosophy and literature, remained faithful to them until the end of his life. Already in extreme old age, he blessed the little grandson of an American patriot Franklin, laying his hand on the boy's head with the words: "God and freedom" (God and liberty).

Portrait of Voltaire. Artist M. K. Latour. OK. 1736

Everything in England was new for a living Frenchman, and even more so for France those ideas that Francois Voltaire began to popularize in her upon his return to his homeland were still new. For example, the French of that time in philosophy and science continued to strictly adhere to the views of Descartes, knowing almost nothing about the new theories of Locke and Newton. Voltaire was struck by this honor, which the government and society rendered in England to thinkers and scientists, and the freedom that writers, printers and booksellers enjoyed here. In England, Voltaire, so to speak, finally believed in reason, in its inherent power to reveal the secrets of nature, in its victory over superstitions, in the need for freedom for it, in its powerful influence on public life, and came to the conclusion that thinkers, scientists , writers are called to be the true leaders of society. The contrasts that England represented in the twenties of the XVIII century. with what was then France, also caught the eye of an observant traveler.

Voltaire summarized all his impressions and set out in the famous “English Letters” (“Lettres sur les Anglais”, the title is sometimes translated as “Philosophical Letters”), which were published, however, only a few years (1734) after his return to his homeland. Although in this book he curtailed himself and had to wait for some favorable time for its publication, nevertheless, it necessarily acquired the character of criticism of the French order, since, nevertheless, Voltaire did not deny himself the pleasure of doing in some places comparing someone else's with one's own. The Parlement of Paris sentenced the book to public burning by the executioner's hand. The main thing that struck Voltaire in England was, after all, spiritual Liberty. Montesquieu (who visited England shortly after Voltaire left her) became an ardent supporter of her political system, as providing personal and political freedom. Still later, for the Physiocrats, England became a country of the most exemplary economic order (which in reality did not exist, but which was true in comparison with France). François Voltaire was the first of the French who opened the way for English influence in France, and the fact that this versatile man was not interested in either political forms or the economic system indicates, on the one hand, the weakness of political interest at the beginning of the enlightenment movement, and on the other hand on the other hand, on the purely abstract, individualistic and rationalistic source of this intellectual movement.

Voltaire and the Marquise du Chatelet

Returning from England, Voltaire set about what he began to consider the main task of his whole life, relying on the vast knowledge he had acquired even before his trip abroad and taken out of the country he had visited. In his struggle against feudalism and Catholicism, he used the weapon of vicious, caustic, murderous mockery, harsh characterizations of people and things, in all other ways that he could make himself read and talked about himself both in France and outside France. First, changing his place of residence as usual, in 1735 he settled for a long time in the castle of Cyr, with the owner of which, the Marquise Emilie du Chatelet, he became close friends two years before, and continued to live there until her death in 1749. This remarkable a woman who studied, among other things, Newton, helped Voltaire a lot in his literary pursuits. The most intense work absorbed almost all of his time, and he developed his activities more and more widely at this time of his life. His labors were interrupted only by travels, which he loved very much and which were sometimes directly necessary for him, since sometimes he simply had to go somewhere out of fear for his freedom.

Marquise Emilie du Chatelet - beloved of Voltaire

By the way, the Marquise du Chatelet, like Voltaire himself, competed in the Academy of Sciences on one scientific issue (on the conditions of combustion), proposed for a prize. In general, at this time, Voltaire was engaged in natural science quite a lot and even made various kinds of physical experiments himself - a trait that we also meet with other writers of the 18th century, who, however, were not natural scientists - for example, Montesquieu. (Voltaire is also important as a popularizer of Newton's philosophy in France with his essay Foundations of Newton's Philosophy, 1738). During the years of cohabitation with the Marquise du Chatelet, Voltaire wrote especially a lot, and at that time he was already at the top of his fame. Thanks to patronage Madame Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, who personally hated Voltaire, he even received a court position (gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre du roi) and was made a historiographer of France. Around the same time (1746) he was elected a member of the French Academy. However, in order to achieve such honors, he had to write a play for the court theater, dedicate his Mahomet to Pope Benedict XIV and publicly declare his allegiance to the very church that he constantly attacked.

Voltaire and Frederick the Great

In 1750, after the death of the marquise, Voltaire went to Prussia, to Frederick II the Great, who, while still the crown prince, entered into correspondence with him and then repeatedly called him to him. Voltaire settled in the royal palace and received the position of chamberlain, the order pour le mérite (“for merit”) and 20 thousand livres of annual pension. It is known, however, that these two remarkable men of their time did not get along with each other. There is a whole anecdotal story of Voltaire's stay at the Prussian court, the essence of which boils down to the fact that, by their characters, both Voltaire and Frederick the Great were not able to yield to each other, which they also helped good people who passed various gossip to one about the other. Either Voltaire found out that the king compared him with a lemon that is thrown when the juice is squeezed out of it, then, on the contrary, they brought to the attention of Frederick II about how the philosopher complains that the king instructs him to wash his dirty linen, meaning poetry by him, which Frederick II liked to write and gave to Voltaire for corrections. There were other reasons for mutual displeasure. By the way, Voltaire very angrily ridiculed under the name "Doctor Akaki" the president of the Royal Academy in Berlin, the French scientist maupertuis, who was portrayed with more than strange scientific plans, such as that it would be good to drill a hole to the center of the earth, or dissect the brain of living people in order to find out how the soul works, or even build a special city where everyone would speak Latin, and where in this way it would be possible to learn the Latin language. Frederick the Great himself laughed at the evil satire when it was still in manuscript, but did not want it to be printed. Voltaire, however, published it in Holland. The Prussian king then stood up for the honor of the president of his academy, and the work that ridiculed Maupertuis, by royal order, was publicly burned. The extreme irritation of Frederick the Great is also evidenced by the words in which he expresses his view of Voltaire as a low soul, and as a monkey that should be torn off for her tricks, etc.

Frederick II the Great, King of Prussia

Voltaire did not bear the insult; he sent the chamberlain key, the order and the pension certificate to the king with a note in which he compared these things with souvenirs that an abandoned lover returns to his beloved. Although a reconciliation took place between the host and the guest, Voltaire eventually (in the spring of 1753) left Prussia. In a short time, however, he had to undergo a new insult. Leaving Prussia, he took with him a volume of poems by Frederick the Great, among which were both obscene and politically inconvenient - the Prussian king gave free rein to his evil tongue about some crowned persons. In Frankfurt am Main, a Prussian resident came to the philosopher and demanded that he return the poems, but since the suitcase in which they were hidden was not with Voltaire, and therefore he had to wait until all his things were brought, he had to be subjected to a kind of arrest for more than a month (although Frankfurt was an imperial city and, therefore, Prussian officials had no right to dispose of it, and even with a French subject). Despite this incident, correspondence between Frederick II and Voltaire continued afterwards. Even the essay he published on the private life of the Prussian king, which was extremely unfavorable for Frederick the Great, did not deprive the author of this book of the pension that was assigned to him by the offended king.

Voltaire - "Crush the vermin!"

Having visited some German courts, Voltaire appeared in Geneva in 1755, not wanting and even fearing to return to France. “I am afraid of monarchs and bishops,” he explained the choice of residence in the republican and Protestant city. Voltaire was a very rich man, having amassed his fortune in part by various monetary speculations. Soon afterwards, he bought himself - already on French territory, not far from Geneva - the famous Ferney, an estate in which he lived for the last twenty years of his life. This estate represented the convenience that it was close to Geneva and in the event of persecution one could be in some safety. Voltaire was already 64 years old when he settled in Ferney. He was a sickly and weak old man, and yet he continued to work with his former indefatigability, sometimes eighteen hours a day, studying even at night and barely keeping up with finishing the work begun with the help of secretaries. His struggle against Catholicism, which he passionately hated, mainly belongs to this period of his life, a struggle whose motto became the furious words that are so often found in his letters: "crush the vermin!" ("écrasez l "infame!").

Voltaire and the Calas Affair

That was the time when in France, despite expulsion of the Jesuits, the general direction of domestic policy was distinguished by great intolerance: they pursued not only new philosophy in the person of its representatives and in their enterprise, which was called the Encyclopedia, but also Protestantism. In Languedoc, for example, a Huguenot pastor was hanged for fulfilling the duties of his office, and three young Protestants were beheaded for coming with weapons at the sound of the alarm bell announcing the arrest of a heretical shepherd. There was a Protestant in Toulouse named Jean Calas. His youngest son converted to Catholicism, and when soon the son, who led a dissolute life, committed suicide, the father was accused of having killed his son himself, not wanting to see him convert to Catholicism. Despite the absence of clear evidence, the unfortunate old man was wheeled by the verdict of the local parliament, and his wife and children were tortured and only with great difficulty escaped to Geneva to Voltaire. Catholics declared the suicide a martyr and even talked about miracles taking place on his grave (1762). This gave Voltaire a reason to write a treatise on religious tolerance, he interested Paris, France, Europe in this matter, achieved a revision of the process, which resulted in the rehabilitation of the executed and the issuance of a large pension to his family. For three years Voltaire was occupied with the case of Calas: not once, he says, during this time did a smile show on his face, since he himself would consider it an injustice. In this case, the writer earned himself a pan-European authority as a "champion of humanism and tolerance", but his very essence still cannot be considered finally resolved. The evidence in the case of Calas is contradictory, and some historians to this day believe that he was indeed guilty of killing his son. Examples of similar Protestant fanaticism have been encountered before. Voltaire could not have been unaware of them; could not but know that the case with Calas contained a lot of mystery. It turned out that while earning public popularity as a fighter against "Catholic fanaticism", the famous writer acted as a justifier of Calvinist fanaticism.

In the same year as the history of Calas, the Bishop of Castres forcibly took away from a certain Sirven, also a Protestant, his young daughter and placed her in convent to be raised in the Catholic faith. The girl went crazy, ran away from the monastery and drowned herself in the well. Sirven was blamed for the death of his daughter and escaped from the fate of Kalas only by flight. Among the hardships of the difficult path, he lost his wife and found shelter only with Voltaire. Meanwhile, the Toulouse parliament sentenced the fugitive to death penalty and confiscation of property, but even here Voltaire loudly and publicly acted as a defender of "tolerance", interested in the fate of Sirven the European monarchs (by the way, Catherine II), and achieved a revision of the process. A few years later (1766) in Abbville, two eighteen-year-old youths, de la Barre and d "Etalond, were accused of having broken the crucifix, although they themselves claimed that the denunciation of them was made "out of fanaticism and personal malice." D " Etalond fled and, on the recommendation of Voltaire, got a place with Frederick II, and de la Barre was sentenced by the Amiens court to cut off his hand and tongue and to be burned at the stake, and only the Paris Parliament replaced such an execution with beheading. In addition, while living in Ferney, Voltaire learned about the plight of the serfs belonging to the monastery of St. Claudius in the Jura Mountains, and wrote about their slavery, several small articles. The rumor about this reached the downtrodden villagers, and they were ready to replace the statue of the saint in the church niche with a statue of Voltaire interceding for them.

Voltaire at Ferney

In Ferney, Voltaire built a new castle, attracted a small population to his estate, mainly from watchmakers, to whom he delivered orders, set up a theater and became "the innkeeper of the whole of Europe", as Ferney began to be visited by many visitors of different nationalities. Even foreign courts were interested in Ferney life; Emperor Joseph II, during a trip to France, visited this estate, but limited himself to a walk in the park and left without seeing the owner in order to please his pious mother Maria Theresa. From Ferney, Voltaire corresponded with Frederick II, with Catherine II and other sovereigns. Christian VII of Denmark considered it necessary to justify himself to him that he could not immediately crush everything that hindered the civil freedom of his people. Gustav III of Sweden treated Voltaire with great respect, and was proud, as a reward, of his interest in the affairs of the North. Both old and beginning writers turned to Francois Voltaire, and various high-ranking persons, such as marshals and bishops, and many private individuals, asking him for advice, instructions, posing questions, for example, about the existence of God and about the immortality of the soul, as he did some burgomaster from Middleburg, or about the correctness of certain turns of speech - a question that was once addressed to him by two cavalrymen arguing with each other. Voltaire was in the habit of answering all letters, and in its length his correspondence is worthy of taking a place next to his writings; it deserves, however, attention both in its content and in its literary quality.

Fearing persecution and, for example, not daring to go to Italy for this reason, Voltaire often even now published his most daring works anonymously, or attributed them to dead authors, or directly renounced them. For his part, he was ready to do much more than he could hope to reconcile powerful and dangerous people with him. As a Ferney landowner, for example, he built a church on his land with a proud inscription: “Voltaire raised up to God” (Deo erexit Voltaire) and kept the Capuchin monk Adam for 13 years, about whom he said that although he was not the first person, but nevertheless, he is a good person. But about the consecration of the church, during which Voltaire, as the patron of the temple, delivered something like a sermon against theft, he had a clash with the clergy. The bishop of the diocese where Ferney was, saw in all the behavior of Voltaire in this case blasphemy and began to seek that the owner of Ferney be expelled from France. Voltaire then considered it necessary to reconcile with the church and therefore led in his church on Easter 1768. On the part of the bishop, this caused an extremely stern letter, to which Voltaire answered with a question why the fulfillment of such a Christian duty was met by the bishop only with scolding. Not one, however, the bishop, who knew the religious views of Voltaire, was indignant about this: and Voltaire's friends reacted to his act with censure, seeing in it obvious opportunism and cowardice. The philosopher justified himself only by the fact that, having no desire to burn at the stake, he saw in this act a means to silence all kinds of spies. Meanwhile, the bishop forbade the Ferney priest to continue to confess and receive communion from his landowner. Then Voltaire had a desire to annoy the enemy, and by hook or by crook he succeeded in making the rector of the Ferney church violate the bishop's command, although Voltaire had to resort to the help of a notary for this. Moreover, Voltaire procured for himself the dignity of an honorary trustee order of the Capuchins, which was brought to him by influential people, and he was very amused by writing letters to the bishop and signing under them "† Voltaire, capucin indigne."

The death of Voltaire and the significance of his work

Voltaire lived to see the beginning of his reign LouisXVI and welcomed the onset of the era of reforms with the appointment of the philosopher and economist Turgot to the ministers (1774), although he also had to see the fall of Turgot (1776), which plunged the "Ferney hermit" into despair. At the same time, he began to bother to be allowed to visit Paris, but only in the spring of 1778 did he receive permission to come to the capital of France. The solemn welcome made to him in the streets of Paris, and the ovation arranged in the French Academy and in the theater, where one of his plays was staged, greatly shocked the old man, who was already in his ninth decade, and on May 30, 1778, after a short illness, he died just a few years before the start of that revolution, which was prepared by new cultural ideas and the general spirit of Voltairianism. During the French Revolution, Voltaire's ashes were transferred to the Church of St. Genevieve, turned into the Pantheon, as the tomb of the great people of France, and an inscription was made on his tomb characterizing the attitude of witnesses of his activities towards Voltaire. “Poet, historian, philosopher, he exalted the human mind and taught it to be free. He defended Calas, Sirven, de la Barre and Montbally. He refuted atheists and fanatics. He preached tolerance. He restored the rights of man against the slavery of feudalism."

Seated Voltaire. Sculpture by J. A. Houdon, 1781

Condorcet, himself one of the philosophers of the 18th century, and later a prominent figure in the revolution, defined the significance of Voltaire in his biography of the latter: “The Russian Empress, the kings of Prussia, Denmark and Sweden tried to earn Voltaire's praise; in all countries, nobles, ministers, striving for glory, sought the favor of the Ferney philosopher and confided to him their hopes for the success of reason, their plans for the spread of enlightenment and the destruction of fanaticism. He founded a union throughout Europe, the soul of which was himself. The motto of this union was: reason and tolerance! Here, however, it is necessary to make a reservation that by excessively exaggerating the “fanaticism” of Catholics, Voltaire planted the sprouts of such “free thinking”, which, having achieved power in France after 1789, overshadowed the entire centuries-old history with its intolerance and bloody persecution of dissent in a few years. inquisition.

One of the greatest French Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century: poet, prose writer, satirist, tragedian, historian, publicist.

Later he left for England, where he lived for three years (1726-1729), studying its political system, science, philosophy and literature.

Returning to France, Voltaire published his English impressions under the title Philosophical Letters; the book was confiscated (1734), the publisher paid with the Bastille, and Voltaire fled to Lorraine, where he found shelter with the Marquise du Chatelet (with whom he lived for 15 years). Being accused of mocking religion (in the poem "Secular Man"), Voltaire fled again, this time to the Netherlands.

In 1746, Voltaire was appointed court poet and historiographer, but, having aroused the discontent of the Marquise de Pompadour, he broke with the court.

Quotes and aphorisms

Think about how difficult it is to change yourself, and you will understand how insignificant your ability to change others is.

The main thing is to get along with yourself.

The more we think, the more we become convinced that we know nothing.

A person is worth something only when he has his own point of view.

Only the weak commit crimes: the strong and happy do not need them.

The strength of women is in the weaknesses of men.

Freedom is not something you've been given. This is something that cannot be taken away from you.

In the morning I make plans, and in the afternoon I do stupid things.

All the reasoning of men is not worth one feeling of a woman.

Judge a man more by his questions than by his answers.

We need words to hide our thoughts.

Happiness always arrives on wings and leaves on crutches.

I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the last drop of my blood your right to express your own point of view.

Stupid is the man who always remains the same.

How many stupid things people say just out of a desire to say something.

We never live, we only hope that we will live.

It would be wise, instead of being angry at the world find the courage to act.

It is impossible to have a true conception of what has not been experienced.

The triumph of reason consists in the ability to get along with people who do not have it.

There are never great things without great difficulties.

History is a lie that everyone agrees on.

Most people die without ever having lived.

To give out someone else's secret is a betrayal, to give out one's own is stupidity.

The best quotes from Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)) updated: November 21, 2016 by: website